The lizard crawling across my lounge room floor today reminded me of something that happened some years ago. Before I tell the story, let me explain the lizard on the lounge room floor. My wife and I like having a furry friend living with us, we’ve had woofers as well as those who meow. Overall we prefer the cat, although there are times...
Seeing a lizard crawling across the floor is not unlike seeing a toy left in a walkway, we simply shout Hunter! Instead of Matthew! Kids and cats activities are amusing to watch, if only they could be taught to clean up the mess they leave behind when interest shifts to new projects. It’s always my job to do the catch and release thing, it’s a job I don’t like anymore.
Before Hunter, there was Whiskers, before Whiskers there was Simba, they all seemed to be addicted but it was Whiskers that had a major lizard issue.
It was a dark and stormy night, the monotonous thump of the wipers was punctuated by the clap of thunder as I drove toward the house. We had only moved in a few weeks before and the still unfamiliar and wet street kept my attention on where I was going instead of where I'd been that day. I suppose being a salesman one gets used to driving by instinct, sort of autopilot, but the street being unfamiliar and the rain made me pay attention. That would be the only reason I noticed the dragon that night. It was on the nature strip in front of my house moving slowly toward the driveway when the headlights caught it. Shit! was the loud exclamation I used, this thing was at least two foot long. When it noticed the lights it started running slowly in an awkward twisting gait. It went straight to the retaining wall built from old railway sleepers, it disappeared into a hole I hadn’t noticed before. Stopping the car at the end of the drive I got out in the rain to look closer, that hole was four inches or so across but only two high, there seemed to be a burrow behind the wall. Still amazed I climbed back in the car and drove up the steep incline. I had no idea these things were in suburbs like mine. I knew immediately that it was a Blue Tongue lizard even though I’d only seen them from a distance. Normally they didn’t prowl around at night but it had become dark quickly because of the storm, and it was warm.
Shutting the garage door I climbed the steps up to the house, the storm growing worse. My wife was setting the dining room table as I opened the front door. Dripping wet I stood there and announced in what must have been a loud voice “We have a dragon in the garden!”, at the same instant lightening flashed in the doorway behind me. She started, then froze, more from the lightning than my announcement, the plate in her left hand poised a few inches above the table and a bunch of knives and forks in her right. Her head tilted at an angle and her face toward me as she bent over to position the plate, she said calmly, “have you been drinking?”
“No, really, there was a very large lizard down on the street, it ran into a hole in the sleepers.” “Dry off and check the meat in the oven” her only reply, so much for excitement tonight I thought. The boys had heard me arrive, and apparently my mention of dragons, running from the hall they stopped a few feet away and said in unison “Where’s a dragon?” perhaps there would be some excitement after all. Being a quick thinker my dragon immediately became three possibly four feet long with teeth. Apparently they teach too much in pre-school these days, it only took a few minutes of my laying it on with a shovel for them to decide that their Wonder Boy Sega game was more realistic. As they disappeared into the “Boys Room” until dinner was ready, I told the wife about my day, which took about as long as kicking off my shoes.
When I sat down in my usual spot to see what was on TV, Whiskers jumped up for his rub. The noise of the thunder, and the lightning didn’t frighten Whiskers, of all the cats I’d had he alone wasn’t afraid of anything. Over the thunder I shouted to Sally “Whiskers would think twice about bringing that lizard in”, she didn’t reply, I’m used to that. Since no one ever listens to me anyway, whenever I had a comment to make I’d developed the habit of saying nothing, silently agreeing with myself, and nodding sagely.
Our house stood on a sloping block of land, when standing at our front door street level was two stories below. The climb took a lot of effort, especially if one had to go to the up-stairs rooms once reaching the door. I told friends I enjoyed seeing people’s faces in the windows as they flew by coming in for a landing at Sydney airport. Could have been true, except that the hill continued upward behind our house, planes had to go around. It was this hill that gave Whiskers his supercat strength. The garden had been built by the previous owner, a landscape designer who won awards for his native plantings.
This place was cat heaven, like a jungle it was full of secret places to hide and jump out of. Whiskers spent his day chasing imaginary prey up and down the hillside at a full run. He was a large tabby to start with, the exercise had given him enormous shoulders and legs. In spite of the street being so far below, he could be easily seen from there when sitting in the window collecting sun. I think he enjoyed the hunt but had no stomach for a kill, in the time we had him he never gave us the brag walk. Cats like to show off their success at the hunt, bringing prey to the house as if to say “Look what I did”. Whiskers only went as far as bringing in live lizards he’d caught, he would play around with them for a few moments then move on to something else. I had to catch the damn things and show them the door.
There was a fish pond in the front yard, in fact it took up most of the small level area under the dining room window. I’ve seen Whiskers sit and watch the fish swim around, but he hadn’t tried to do any active fishing. We did lose some fish to Cranes whose long legs allowed them to wade in and spear one now and then. Whiskers would just sit and watch from a distance, the cranes seemed to know he had no interest in them.
After dinner we sat down together as the wife insisted, my job that night was to read a story before bed. I’m sure she could have done this after tucking them in but they wanted to hear the native story tonight. During a business trip to Papua New Guinea I'd found a small book used to teach remote villagers pidgin English. It had drawings of common daily events and descriptions in pidgin. I’d bought it for myself, even in Port Moresby pidgin is good to know. Although I made a mess of pronouncing words, the boys found it amusing.
We sat there on the couch which faced the front windows, with the TV and lights turned down low, thunder almost drowning out my voice at times, Whiskers was sitting on the brick window sill staring at us, back turned to the stormy night. Pretty much a scene of domestic bliss, until the dragon entered.
The older son saw it first, a small sound and a pointed finger was all he managed but that drew our attention to the front window. There, silhouetted by the lightning flashes, stood the dragon. Sitting on the couch, we were at eye level with him as he stood on his hind legs, his front legs and belly pressed against the glass, the blue tongue flicking in and out. As the lightning flashed and a crash of thunder shook the house we all stopped breathing for what seemed like ages. We must have been like a deer caught in headlights, frozen in shock. To be honest, I didn’t want to move, if it didn’t see me perhaps.... irrational in hindsight but that’s what it was like.
Whiskers had been quietly sitting like the Sphinx in the window, the thickness of the pane of glass away from it. Our frozen stare must have alerted him to something odd, he turned his head and, really there’s no other word for it, he flew. Literally, he was on the window ledge one second and on the couch with us the next. I remember seeing him in the air passing between us and the dragon at about four feet off the floor. I swear his feet did not touch the floor between the window and us. That was a good 12 feet of space.
I’m a little confused about exactly what happened next, everything was like a series of stop motion images, dark outside one second, backlit by lightning the next, thunder, a low moan coming from one of us. Whiskers, claws dug into the back of the couch behind my head looked enormous, fur standing at right angles to his body, back arched and teeth bared in a mad snarl. I couldn’t believe the continuous hiss he was emitting, it just went on and on. I saw the dragon slowly turn its head and look to its right, sliding its front legs and body slowly off the glass in that direction, it disappeared into the night.
The wife has never commented on that night, I’m not sure why. Both boys took it as children do, a couple of dream tossed nights then it was just something that happened. You know, I don’t think they ever questioned my stories again after that night, my dragon had turned out to be real. I had a look outside the next day, there were some spider webs around the window, this is what he was after. I checked the height of the window, for him to have been at eye level to us he had to stand on the outside window ledge, it was only two bricks above ground level. My estimate of two foot long was perhaps a little short, that is, if this were the same dragon I saw on the street. Why he choose a stormy night to do what he did we’ll never know, but it was effective.
Whiskers couldn’t tell us what he thought, but some odd things did happened with him after that. He wouldn’t go near that particular window again for about a year. It took him quite some time to return to his adventures in the garden, he would often jump sideways at the slightest rustle in the undergrowth. Where before the visit, he would explore without fear or much caution, he would now approach dark crevices warily. Thinking back now, I don’t remember him ever bringing another lizard into the house until his dying day. I have some regrets about moving from that house as we did a few years later but I still don’t like standing in a high window on stormy nights. I also think of lizards as small dragons, really.
JAWhite Return To Main Page
February 2010
Lightning, Photo Courtesy: Steve Smith, flickr.com
Blue Tongue Lizard, Photo Courtesy: Tim Phillips, flickr.com
The Cat, Photo Courtesy: Zalgon, flickr.com
Awesome!
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